Buried: Indianapolis, Indiana
Died: March 13, 1901
See him: Benjamin Harrison may be the least remembered president of all. Even Millard Fillmore, the patron saint of presidential obscurity, is remembered for not being remembered. Not so with Harrison. Even in death he’s overlooked – at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, the most high-profile resident is not the 23rd president of the United States but bank robber John Dillinger.
This might be due to his reputation as being more comfortable with books than with people: known as “the iceberg,” Harrison sometimes tapped his pencil at the end of appointments as a wordless hint for guests to beat it. He was the last personable chief executive this side of Calvin Coolidge.
But obscurity has its compensations: Harrison’s tomb is in a lovely spot, with a hillside in the background, and it’s even getting some new landscaping, courtesy of the Indianapolis Garden Club. The more word gets out about this spot, the more attention the old “iceberg” might get after all.
